Due to growing environmental concern and the increasingly limited availability of trash disposal facilities, such as land fills and incinerators, it has become apparent that more effort and support must be given to increase the recycling of waste by the general population. Increasing awareness has led to the enactment of laws which require the separation of waste products by individual households prior to being placed for pick-up and delivery to the appropriate recycling facility.
Preparation of recyclable waste for pick-up by the appropriate disposal crew can be divided into two functions. First, the waste must be sorted into different categories of recyclable material. Second, the sorted material must be stored until a disposal crew picks up the waste for transport to the appropriate recycling facility.
The urban apartment dweller is particularly concerned with his limited floor space relative to the area required for storing the sorted waste. If separate freestanding containers are used to sort and store waste, the available floor space in a small house or apartment is thereby reduced. In addition, the sorting operation is complicated when the containers are moved about the apartment and rearranged.
Previous generally unsatisfactory expedients include, for example, the systems described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,722 issued to Jones, U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,653 issued to Sterner, Jr., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,682,699 issued to Ertley.
Difficulties with the previous expedients included, for example, the limited number of containers which can be vertically aligned because of the difficulty in accessing the uppermost and lowermost containers.
There is a long-felt, unsolved need for a system of waste preparation and storage which would allow the waste to be easily segregated into recyclable groups, stored in a limited amount of floor space, and easily removed to a curb side or other area for easy pick-up by the appropriate disposal crew.
Such a waste recycling system should be inexpensive, easily accessible, non-obtrusive, take up limited floor space, and provide containers which are freestanding, lightweight, easily moved, and replaceable.